We have selected 12 wines we think every adventurous wine lover must try! These are wines that you will love but may have overlooked when buying a bottle of your favourite Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio or Malbec! Call in a try these wines your guaranteed to find one you like.

THIS IS A FREE INFORMAL TASTING.
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The new consumer website will engage consumers with rich content that is educational and user-friendly. It highlights Australia’s 65 premium wine regions with winemaker profiles, stories, regional events and insights into some of Australia’s most popular wine varieties.

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Our beer & food pairings have always been popular with you rising sons and daughters and for this reason we're showing some love this Valentine's Day. Introducing our Beer and Dessert pairing - a guided tasting of our award-winning beer and a selection of sweet delights made in-house, paired perfectly for your Valentine night. All for the sweet price of €10.

ICEX Spain Exports and Investments and the Economic and Commercial Office of the Embassy of Spain in Dublin organize the IV edition of the SPANISH WINE WEEK (SWW), the biggest Spanish wine promotion event that takes place in Ireland between the 8th and the 14th of April. The main objective of the actions organized in the framework of that week and simultaneously in various cities in Ireland, is to give the greatest possible visibility to Spanish wines and their different regions, in addition to showing their diversity and high quality.

The different activities organized include tastings, dinner paired, discounts on the purchase of wine and promotions in stores and media, as well as raffles in the press and social networks. This aims to give the public the opportunity to taste a wide variety of wines through different experiences, while encouraging the consumption and purchase of Spanish wine throughout the week, precisely because of the offers and discounts offered by the stores , bars and restaurants.

Dot Brew is a gypsy micro brewery brand with roots strongly cultivated in Dublin 8. Specialising in uniquely designed barrel aged and blended beers for an evolving Irish and International palette. Dot adopts maturation and blending techniques from the Whiskey and Wine industries and applying them to break the boundaries of beer production. Dot has been rated one of the top 10 Irish brewers by Untappd users for 2018. (Placed 6th)

Larkins :

Launched in 2018 after dipping their toes into the brewing market at the RDS Irish Craft Beer Festival the previous year, Larkins has already been rated one of the top 5 Irish brewers by Untappd users for 2018. (Placed 3rd) An independently family ownedbrewery based in County Wicklow, Larkins set their focus on making lager style beers as good as they can be along with working on other styles of beers from IPA’s , Saisons to Pale Ales.

On the night, we will present a selection of 6 superior gins, a selection of premium tonics and explore the different herbs and botanical's used in the distilling process of creating craft gins.Info here https://www.facebook.com/events/236122720613873/

A welcome G&T will be served at 7.15 pm to allow the group to mingle before the tasting, the tastings itself will begin at 7:30 pm (sharp) in the upstairs Mezzanine.

You also have the option to have a meal if you so wish before or after the tastings.

We will be sampling lovely gins, its will be a unique night you won't want to miss

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Cider? Wine? Sherry? Champagne? Which would win? These were the questions as this fun event, involving matching Sushi with various drinks, kicked off in the marvellous L’Atitude Wine Cafe in Cork last Wednesday. In the end an atypical Loire Sauvignon Blanc got the nod from the audience.

There was already one champion on the table as we entered and that was a plateful of delightful Sushi, skillfully prepared by Takashi Miyazaki, Cork and Ireland’s favourite Japanese chef. And what does the maestro himself drink with it? Well, saké, of course, after a beer or two! Saké, a natural match, wasn't in the line-up the other night. The omission was deliberate and that gave the others a chance.

Takashi had Seared Salmon (sesame oil added before the searing), Cured Salmon (tasted somewhat like the very best Prosciutto), Sea Bass (with salmon roe on top) and “Plain” Salmon (with green chilli, pepper, and salted to give it “a kick”) in his sushi selection.

Beverley of L’Atitude kicked off proceedings with a bottle of Cockagee Cider in her hands. “This is the champagne of ciders”, she declared. “I just love it. It's incredible, not overly tannic. A fine cider for some very fine sushi.”

And then came Leslie Williams, words flowing like bubbles at a West Ham game as he lauded the Devaux Rosé Champagne, made mainly with Pinot Noir grapes. “Its richness, that hint of sweetness, would work well with the sushi.” If in doubt, not that Leslie had any doubts, “it has to be champagne”.

L'Atitude, No. 1 Union Quay.

And then, with hands in motion, Pascal introduced his natural wine, a Loire Sauvignon blanc by Alexandre Bain. “He makes wine like his grandfather did, not like his father did, and is the only grower in the area to allow malolactic fermentation. It is rounder, richer, creamier than the standard Pouilly Fumé. It is listed in a three star Michelin in Paris and paired with raw fish and pickled ginger!” The words plus, we believe, no little “practice” with Takashi, paid off in votes.

And then Paddy Murphy took up the cause of sherry. What else? His Manzanilla (La Guita) - “really a wine in its own right”- was bone dry and light with a saline character and paired with the sushi “should enhance the umami”. The Don Zoilo Amontillado was, said Paddy, “the king of sherry..with a slight richness, yet bone dry..savoury..tangy… should pair well”. Indeed, both styles went down very well indeed among the voters but the two-wine strategy split the vote; both did well but neither got enough to win.

The noteworthy Champion

Susan Boyle sang the praises of her St Brigid’s Pale Ale and pointed to the hop bitterness “a key ingredient for this matching, not in any of the previous drinks”. She listed other local ingredients: barley and honey from their own hives. “It may be an unusual choice but I think it works particularly well. I’m saving the best til last so tick that little box!”

Ottolenghi tasted the beer at the recent LitFest and said it was “the bee’s knees”. Susan wasn't the only one to name-drop. In the end though, the audience went with Le Caveau Sauvignon blanc.

Two Many?

Really though, there were quite a few winners on a very enjoyable evening, including the punters. Well done to L’Atitude for their irrepressible enthusiasm and bubbling invention, to the five presenters, to our MC Colm McCan (he said he was using the south facing clock on Shandon Tower as a time-keeping aid - visitors had to be told that Shandon is known as the four-faced liar), and of course to Takashi Miyazaki (whose famous must-visit takeaway is at the corner of Barrack Street and Evergreen Street).

Monday, May 23, 2016

Pete Brown, author of the World’s Best Cider, said the Irish craft cider scene is one of the most exciting right now. The ciders have “high juice content” and the makers “love their apples”. One of the most exciting yes, despite rankling under a very unfair tax regime that would seem to be designed to stifle innovation rather than encourage it.

Take Longueville House Cider Mór as an example. Because producer William O’Callaghan has added a wee spoon of brandy to his basic cider, the tax on Mór is five times the normal. Leslie Williams has raised the general issue many times, saying the current rebate system, which is very good for craft beer makes, is unfair on cider makers. The producers of an excellent wholly Irish product are being punished.

Leslie

So that's the sour notes out of the way. The rest of this panel discussion, the opening one in the Drinks Theatre at this year’s Ballymaloe Litfest, was focussed on five delicious ciders, five quite different examples, none of which would have been available just a few short years ago.

Pete Brown was joined on the panel by Leslie and by Caroline Hennessy, author of Slainte.

They and the audience were welcomed to the “tractor shed” by Ballymaloe’s Colm McCan as we gathered to hail cider, the drink of the common people for perhaps 2,000 years, according to Pete.

Pete

Producer Simon Tyrrell introduced his Craigies 2013 Dalliance. Simon, well known for his wine background, says with Dalliance “we try to express the vinous side of cider”. He mentioned the terroir (Cappoquin Estate, sandstone). The apple blend is fifty fifty between Ekstar and Falstaff, both eating apples, and it spends 15 months on its lees.

Bright fresh fruit with extra creaminess here and you’ll note some cloudiness from the yeasts. Pete Brown said Dalliance proves you can make cider out of eating apples. And this is a good one.

“We use no chemicals at any point” said Rod Calder-Potts as he introduced his organic Highbank Proper Cider 2014. “We encourage microbial activity to counter any malign organisms...Cider makes itself..no sulphites...we put it in a barrell..local yeasts do the rest.”

This was bottled just last week by Con Traas, is 100 per cent apple and naturally dry. Pete loved the contrast between the first two ciders and confessed to being obsessed by yeast, at least with how the yeast converts sugar to alcohol! Leslie reminded us that, compared to beer makers, cider makers get just one chance per year.

And now Leslie introduced yet another type of Irish cider, Cockagee from County Meath. He did mention that there was “devilment” in the name but didn't go into the details. It is keeved, a process common in Brittany and Normandy and explained here on the Cockagee website.

Caroline

Pete said you can only shake your head with wonder that a process from the 14th or 15th century can still produce a “beautiful natural cider. In a blind tasting, I would class this as Breton and it would be a perfect match with crepes”. Caroline agreed but their hints for crepes went unheeded!

William O’Callaghan, as he introduced his Longueville Mór, disclosed that the first apples in their orchard, planted 25 years ago, were intended for apple brandy rather than cider and that their micro-distillery was the first such in ireland. William, a chef who trained in Normandy, started the move to cider there about two years ago.

The Mór is their regular cider with a drop of apple brandy that “gives it a nice little kick”. It fermented naturally with local yeasts and produced with no sulphite. It went down very well indeed and William is proud of it, quite rightly, “but that tax is a pain!”. Caroline asked him what food would pair with it. On its own or maybe with cheese was the answer. I had it a week or two ago at a cider evening in Electric with fish and chips. Caroline herself was thinking Lemon tart!

The Ballymaloe five. Dead men.

We finished with the limited edition (6,000 bottles) Stonewell Tawny 2014. Daniel Emerson told us all about it: “it is a chapitalised dry hop cider..the natural sugar is supplemented with additional sugar and this raises the ABV… minimum aging is 12 months and there is an extraordinary range of flavours over the 12 months”. Lots of tasting, no doubt!

At the end of the process, the cider is “very sweet, like an apple ice-cider”. They decided to counteract this by passing it through Eldorado dry hops. The result was very good and the Tawny has “proved remarkably successful.” And we could all see why. Pete was delighted with it saying it reminded him of a Canadian Ice Cider, “beautiful’.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Jancis Robinson and New World’s New WaveWine on the Move, Fresher and Lighter

The Drinks Theatre at Ballymaloe’s annual LitFest was packed for Saturday’s talk and tasting by Jancis Robinson. The Master of Wine’s talk was entitled Wine’s New Wave - Lighter and Fresher. Jancis, quite deliberately, had chosen mainly New World wines and those from areas that were previously best known for “monster wines”, those big in fruit and alcohol! It was acknowledged that parts of the Old World had been producing this lighter style for quite a while.

Ballymaloe’s Colm McCan welcomed Jancis and she replied saying she was very comfortable, really at home, in the converted tractor shed as she was brought up in a small village herself.

Over recent years, while doing research for her various books, she received reports from all over the world, “from people with their fingers on the pulse”, of a trend towards lighter fresher wines.

The move is to make wines “that express the vineyard”, in a trend towards “single vineyard, even small plot, wines”. The first wine was a Californian Chardonnay 2012, from Sandhi in the new appellation of Santa Rita Hills. This comes from a high-ish site, 200-500 feet. ‘It is almost Chablis like in its acidity,” she said. “But the aim here is for balance.” It was a good start.

Next stop was Stellenbosch, South Africa and a Mourvedre Rosé, Cape Coral 2014. “Not for keeping,” she warned! This lovely pale salmon pink is soft and gentle, bone dry and low in acidity. “Good for food, especially aioli.”

The winemaker here, she told us, has had Southern Rhone experience and uses biodynamic viticulture. "Sounds potty but it seems to produce the goods. The vines look healthier and the soil is also healthy. People all over the world are much more interested in local vines, recuperating older ones”. In response to a question by beer ace Garrett Oliver, Jancis said that all the interesting wine in the world is craft wine.

On then to a couple of Pinot Noirs, the first a Chilean 2012, the Clos Fous by Pucalan, weighing in at 14.5%. Not quite light maybe but beautifully balanced, lovely texture and “satin smoothness, right amount of acidity. A complete steal at ten pounds!”. The vineyard is north of Santiago and “very influenced by the cool ocean”.

The Sonoma County Littorai 2012 will cost you about seven times as much. “This is biodynamic and has the hallmarks of freshness and acidity and this was a very good vintage after the disaster of 2011. More complex, more Burgundian and its lovely texture caresses the palate - think I'll swallow that!” I think we all followed suit.

Now let us hop over to Australia and the BK Wines Syrah 2014 from the Adelaide Hills, “a wine of recreation, rather than contemplation” and chosen more “as an interesting example rather than a fine wine. This is the type served up by the bucket in wine bars.”

Okay then. There would be a good Australian to finish on but first the one nod to the old world: a 2013 Garnacha from a high altitude (550-650 metres) in Mentrida. “This is a new style in Spain, made from up to fifty year old vines. You can smell the sweetness of the Garnacha plus you have masses of natural acidity and a fresh stoniness”.

Many of us here in Ireland appreciate the excellent wines made by Cullen in Margaret River in Western Australia and Jancis produced a winner to finish on: the Diana Madeline 2009, a Bordeaux blend (including 88% Cabernet Sauvignon). “The Cullens were early adopters of bio-dynamic in Australia and this is an Australian classic, the best balanced Bordeaux out of Australia. It is very fragrant, you have that savoury note at the end, a wine of real quality.”

So now you know. If that new wave washes you up on the beautiful beaches of the Margaret River, just head to over to the Cullens. Then again, it might be easier just to check where Liberty Wines distribute them here.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Garrett Oliver, dapper brewmaster at the Brooklyn Brewery, started his Ballymaloe talk and tasting, with this line on tomatoes. Soon, he would delve into bread and cheese, fake bread and fake cheese, and later he would go all philosophical or maybe philological as he explained his theory of pre-sadness!

But there was no sadness in the Drinks Theatre during Garrett’s hour on Sunday afternoon. Just lots of laughs and no shortage of good beer either, beer that tastes like beer! You hear people say, when they taste a craft beer: This is nice, doesn't taste like beer. He had an explanation: “The beer they grew up with didn't taste like real beer!”

Garrett, no mean chef himself, says that “brewing is more like cooking than wine-making”. He went on to give us a bit of background on New York’s diverse food and drink scene; in the late 1800s, you could eat your way around the world in one day there. He revealed that Guinness had a brewery on Long Island in the 1940s that lasted for ten years or so but closed because people preferred Guinness from Ireland.

Back then to the theme of real food and real beer. “It was a different world after prohibition. Better transport, the mass market and advertising led to less choice. The number of breweries in the US went from 4000 to 40, all making much the same beer.”

He highlighted bread as another example. You had fake bread, cheese with yellow colouring. A cheese sandwich consisted of two wraps of “plastic” and a filling of yellow plastic. “Same thing happened with beer.”

Brooklyn Beers

As he introduced the first beer, Brooklyn’s Sorachi Ace, he revealed that his first pint of real British Ale “changed my life”. The Sorachi comes in what looks like a champagne bottle but Garrett wasn't having any of it saying Champagne comes in a beer bottle. No arguing with that, dude!

The Sorachi is based upon a Belgian Saison and that “dill like aroma is unusual”. “It is a super dry beer, slightly hazy and you may find yeast at the bottom. It is very nice with oysters, crabs and other shellfish.”

And then he brought up the pre-sadness. You might, for instance have pre-sadness as your enter the last few days of your holidays in an exotic place, still enjoying yourself but knowing the end is nigh.

The Sorachi was one of their 2009 specials and, like holidays, specials are not meant to last beyond their designated span. So as the Sorachi’s allotted time came to end, the pre-sadness entered their minds even though they were happy drinking it at the same time. So they didn't allow it to end, found excuse after excuse to keep it going and now make it all the time.

Sorachi

Next up was the Hammarby Syndrome, introduced to celebrate their opening of a brewery in Stockholm. It’s brewed from 35% of spelt, an ancient wheat-like grain that was once a mainstay of Scandinavian beers and this gives it a nutty flavour. He recommended it as a food beer, especially with roasts and steaks.

Time for the third beer, the Ghost Bottle Galahad based on their Brooklyn Local No. 1 and made “within the Belgian tradition”. This has been enhanced via the lees from a natural cider fermentation.”It is aged for one year on the lees and has lots of flavour that were not in the original, is cloudy and very dry though it seems sweet.”

Brooklyn is well known for its collaborations. “We were the first brewery to do collaborations but now we were doing it only with friends. Great to bounce around ideas.” We were now sipping his Wild Horse, a stout with quite a kick at 9.4%. He then told us the yeast was the famous, infamous if you’re a winemaker, Brettanomyces, Brett for short.

“Brett was the flavour of stout, back in the day.” You might spot the hay, the farmyard, the horse-sweat. Can't say I did even though the dogs were barking outside in the Ballymaloe farmyard and there were hungry sounds from a bird-nest or two high in the rafters. After all, this Drinks Theatre is in a tractor shed! More on the Wild Horse here.

The journey continued with K Is For Kriek. “This is the least beer-like beer. Kriek is the Belgian tradition of adding fruit. This was food back in the day. This though is a weirdo variation, no Belgian would recognise it as Kriek. We put ten kilos of cherries into each barrel.”

“This was brewed in 2013, spent five months in barrel and overall took one and a half years to make. It is 10.3%. Pair it with duck, goose, foie gras. This is an American interpretation of wheat, illustrates that what we do is something like a chef does when he imports an idea from another country.”

And speaking of ideas, he said nobody ever came up with a great idea over a Diet Coke. “The best ideas need a real drink. They say you live longer if you don't drink. Not really. It just seems longer!” Check the brewery’s notes on the big K here.

ABV has been rising all the time and the final beer packs 13.5%. Hand and Seal is a Barley-wine style, “..nice with Stilton, very strong and sweet, well balanced and will age - for up to forty years!” Once the preserve of nobles, the Brooklyn brewmaster decided it should be for the masses. Read the full story here.

If that was the last of the beers, it was not the last of the session, not with Garrett on the mike. “What we do is creative. This is a renaissance, a recovery from a harmful food system that wiped everything out. Go out and try things. Some of these beers cost less than a coffee.” He must have stayed in the Westbury recently; an Americano cost me €5.40 there last week.

“It is great that you in Ireland now have a burgeoning craft beer movement and your first pint should be from a local brewer. But I would like to be second on the list! As far as I know, you go around once - I’m going to have a good time!”

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Mightn't look like it but they are singing from the same hymn sheet!Raymond Blake (left) and Tom Doorley in the Tractor Shed

Wine writer Raymond Blake, a convert in the cathedrals of Jerez, led the Fortified Wine Choir that Ballymaloe Colm McCan assembled for Sunday’s event in the Drinks Theatre. Blake urged us all to join the crusade and keep these “legacy wines” in a strong position, warning that if they are lost, they will never again appear, as the unique circumstances that gave rise to their creation will never be repeated. “These are treasures”, Raymond preached. “And each is superb in its own right.”

The treasures for tasting in the converted Tractor Shed included two white wines, an En Rama Fino by Gonzalez Byass and a Dry White Port from Taylor’s. Later came the two reds: the Madeira and a Taylor’s Tawny. The other members of the choir were Leslie Williams, Chris Forbes, Tom Doorley and John Wilson and they all sang from the same hymn sheet urging us, among other things, to serve these fortifieds in a wine glass, underlining that these are real wines.

“En Rama is becoming popular,” said Raymond. “But it is a bit untamed, Fino with knobs on.” Tom Doorley then revealed that his big love is Sherry. “It is great value. I also love the huge range of styles and love the austerity of dry sherry."

John Wilson said these are the “most man-made” wine of all. “They require so much intervention. They are incredible, precise, with complex flavours - savour slowly. My personal measure of Fino is a bottle - great with tapas, Iberico ham, almonds, Manchego cheese.”

The panel in the tractor shed

Leslie Williams said En Rama is sherry in the raw, unfiltered and he sometimes matches it with Fish and Chips! Chris Forbes, for a Port man, was generous: “Sherry is one of the wonderful wines, amazing value. Great poured into soup, a use also for White Port. Both are made with indigenous grapes. They are really wines.”

He said Taylors make two of the three styles of White Port, a dry and an extra dry. Five or six varieties of grapes are used and suggested chilling it as an aperitif and serving with tonic and ice.

Raymond loves his Madeira,such a pure wine, "even the sweetest has acidity through it" and it can be measured in centuries, the intensity of it, great flavour, super stuff. Leslie too adores it and says the opened bottle may be kept for quite a while (not not as long as his mother kept the Bristol Cream!). John Wilson is another convert. Of the Barbeito that we were sampling, he purred: “This is so good, it almost hurts, a classic Madeira."

The Fortifieds

Now we were on to the 10 Year Old Tawny by Taylor’s. John Wilson suggested that this was perhaps the future of Port and was bringing people back to the drink. Chris agreed saying Tawny is the current hero. “There has been a 72% growth in the last ten years, absolutely phenomenal. Importantly, at 25 euro, it is affordable.

He suggested serving it slightly chilled and acknowledged a suggestion that it was great with cheese. “But not just with cheese. Try tarte tatins, pour it over vanilla ice-cream. Once opened, it should last for no more than two or three hours, but it will keep for four to six weeks!”

Chris, who was quite busy over the weekend, rounded off this informal and informative event with a great description of the foot treading (bunions and boils and all), a practice that is still current in Taylor’s. They feel it does the job better, is easier on the grapes. Mechanical methods, for instance, can break the pip and release unwanted elements, the human foot does not break the pip.

So now we've come from the cathedrals of the bodegas to the down to earth practices of the lagaar. Fascinating stories behind all of these fortified wines brought to us by a terrific panel and also via the four superb examples in our glasses. Here’s to the winemakers of the past and the pleasures of the present, and hopefully, if enough of you join the crusade, of the future. Sláinte.